After decades of sleepwalking through life, I've finally woken up and realised the greatest dreams are achieved with open eyes and a conscious mind...

Thursday, 16 February 2012

Two Years of Enlightenment

Yesterday marked the second anniversary of my Awakening, and in those two years, my life has changed almost beyond recognition. The face in the mirror is still quite familiar, though it smiles more than it used to.

Echoing detail from other blogs, I’d spent almost the entirety of my teen and adult life as a very lost, messed up and wretched wreck of a human being – never achieving anything of note and seemingly sabotaging all of the good things that came my way, from close relationships to job opportunities.

Then, in the early hours of the morning of February 15th, 2010 – over the course of around an hour – my whole world shifted polarity, from an intensely negative outlook to a supremely positive knowing that life was far more brilliant than I’d ever imagined. I just hadn’t been looking at it the right way.

I’ve had a few ups and downs along the path (learning from my mistakes, rather than ignoring and repeating them, as I did before), but the past two years have been the most incredible of my life, with 2011 the most surreal and beautiful experience I ever could have hoped or dreamed for… and 2012 has started with even greater promise.

I know there are so many people out there who are hurting; lost in their own minds, wondering if they’ll ever find a way through their pain…

Two years and one week ago, I would have labelled myself a suicidal depressive. I had a history of depression that stretched across two nightmarish decades, and I thought that was who I was and who I would be. I never, ever, ever thought I would escape it.

Then, two years ago, the depression stopped.

Two years on… at and in this moment… I am still happy.

There is a way through.

The handle to the door that leads to better days is always within arm’s reach, because it’s there, inside you.

Thousands of years of civilisation, conditioning and control over the masses have meant that this door has been concealed to many, but it’s still there and you’ll find it when your mind is quiet.

To use a contemporary analogy, imagine a badly maintained computer, riddled with malware, old and useless programs, irrepressible popups and general junk data that you don’t want or need. The machine creaks and whines under the strain of all that unnecessary information, eating away at its processing capability, until even the most basic tasks become difficult to carry out. It’s not that the hardware is beyond those tasks – it’s the software that has corrupted the functioning.

This is a fair representation of the average human mind.

Now, say you want to give your child a computer, but instead of giving them something fresh and straight from the factory, you copy all of the information from your dysfunctional machine on to theirs.

In time, your child does the same thing for their children, and their children for theirs, and so on, and so on, and so on…

As the centuries and millennia pass, the same faults and errors are repeated over and over again, and this is why humanity – as a whole – has never truly been free, because true freedom comes from the realisation that we have the in-built ability to restore our minds to factory settings; to clear out the old, negative junk and fill that space with something infinitely more positive.

But the greatest enlightenment comes from realising that we’re not the computer at all…

We’re the operator and we have complete power over the machine that is our mind.

When you learn to tell your mind what to do, rather than the other way around, then you’ll open that door to a better world.

31 comments:

Congratulations on your spiritual awakening. Regardless of how people get there, the there is uplifting, freeing and joyful. I know! My process was different from yours, but I have been lifted up spiritually. Everyone who is awakened arrives there uniquely by himself/herself. I pray it happens to many because the emotional and psychic suffering people experience is very intense, very acute.

So that said, I joined your blog in support and I wish you great wonder and exploits along yourspiritual journey. Happy that your eyes are opened and you are seeing. This is one of my blogs where I share the process (very long getting there) and journey moving in the Spirit. If you feel to, take a look: http://www.achristianapologistssonnets.com/2012/01/blind.html If not, it's fine. We are lead to do what we are and we eventually get there if we believe.Ciao

Wow. Congratulations! There goes a story...when someone asked the Buddha who he was, the Buddha replied, "I'm awake." Presence and self-observation are key to living a life filled with freedom and possibilities.Come by and visit me sometime. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on my journey.Raji

Hi LesI am just going through my awakening process. It started last September and I have been working through issues. Some times I live mindfully and others I live trapped in my ego mind. I am getting there and over time I am appreciating space more. Congrats on your second year. I am excited to be going through the same process as you :-)

I had the same type of experience about 4 years ago now. We are not the voices in our head. We are the listeners.:) I'm always trying to keep that clarity by creating space in my life so I don't get buried under the external noise. We do need stillness and quiet. We need it to get back to ourselves or "restore to factory settings" as you said.

Hi Les, As a life coach who is in the process of developing a program for Teenagers, I find your blog particularly poignant and evidence that we live with choice, but yes sometimes if the knowledge is missing, of the possibility that we can choose differently, then change seems impossible.When i get my show on the road could we talk about having you speak to teens , do you do that?

Hey Les, Thanks for your insights. I too would be interested to know whether there was a specific event that precipitated your change in perspective to life on Earth. I still have my dark days where I confess I'm not sure whether I want to have been born or not. So I'm still curious about techniques for self-enhancement. Many Thanks, Capfantastic (Twitter)

Funny to find this today, your simple jesture to follow me on Twitter lead me here. Which proves that our subconscious is always working and has all the answers. I needed to read this, I was all knotted up in questions and doubts this helped.

That is so strange, yet so hopeful! I was involved in a sexual assault and was drugged a few months ago on a photo shoot in Hawaii. I was misled, scammed and, at that point, still very unhappy with life. I saw the cycles. I knew that I was living in a world that I couldn't handle. When the actual drug hit me (which I have since found out was most likely DMT), I had a vision. I'd had them before but this one was different. I have been raped before and my mind took me back to that place and time, even though I was sitting in a car and my body was there. I saw the flags. I was able to clearly see the actions this man was taking to purposefully harm me. I realized I had already lived that before. This time, I knew what to do to avoid that situation again. I'm not claiming to be enlightened, because I don't know if I am or not- I just live as if I were. Now, at least. It was on that day, in that moment, that I realized that the world and my life was there for me to manipulate and to make my own. It was like a switch. It was the most beautiful moment of my life, even though I was in such a terrible situation. That peak at the light within me gav me the power to change, though. Immediately. I've never really been one to stand up for myself in abusive situations, but I realized the courage to do so had been with me the whole time. I finally shook of my fear and went for it. I'm flying back over there to testify in a few weeks. My assaulted had some serious prior convictions, so the state took over the case and is using me to help them put this dangerous guy away. My point is, this post resonated with that feeling of a switch being flipped within one's mind. I am so amazed that other people are so highly in touch with the control they finally realize they have in their lives minds in the same way that I seem to realize the same within myself. Your posts always make me think about the bigger picture and humanity as a whole.

Isn't awakening a wonderful release, to stretch your body and inner-self, straighten up your whole being, to walk taller as a person, both inside and out. Having come through a life time of being 'depressed and oppressed', a hell of a journey at times and is a huge relief to be out the other side of a long dark tunnel. It wasn't a spiritual awakening as such, I think the spirit side of myself was always there, it's whats anchored me to life, it was more a case of being shoved into a new chapter of being me, and my spirit set free. Things changed, I've learned, I've grown. I'm on a better path at last, no doubt there will be a pot holes on the way but life is good and on the up.